Do you want dull, boring prints? Are you looking for an ink that's difficult to print and cure? Yeah, didn't think so. You want what’s best for your customers, but you also want what’s best for you and your print shop. Plastisol ink brings results that’ll make customers excited without making your printing process harder. Let’s look at the top three reasons why you and your clients will want to use plastisol ink.
MORE OPAQUE
Compared to water-based ink, plastisol is more opaque and vibrant. It covers the shirt better, matting down fibers for a smooth, bright print. When you use plastisol inks that have a high pigment load (like FN-INK™), you’ll see even more vibrancy.
Bright, opaque, and vivid inks are what bring prints to life. Plastisol inks are for the clients that want their shirts to command a room, spread a message, start a conversation, invoke interest, to motivate change. A bright, opaque print is going to make someone do a double-take over a print that’s dull and muted. Plastisol ink is a show stopper.
DOES NOT DRY OUT
Having ink that does not dry out on the screen while you’re in production relieves a ton of stress and work. Do you need to leave in the middle of a run to go to an appointment? No worries, you can leave plastisol ink on the screen and it’ll be just fine. Did you try to finish a job before the weekend, but didn’t make it? Leave the job set up so you can get right back into it on Monday. As long as it isn’t exposed to heat, you can leave plastisol ink out as long as you like.
You can’t say the same thing for water-based ink. Since water-based ink has water in it, the water can evaporate, leading it to potentially dry in a screen. Water-based can dry even while you’re printing. You have to keep it moist and as soon as you need to leave the press, you need to clean up the screen (have you ever reclaimed a screen with pigments locked in the mesh? It’s not a fun time).
For real, it saves you so much time and stress. You can print at your own pace, fast or slow, plastisol ink will be waiting for you.
CURES EASILY
Any printer who has worked with water-based ink knows how much work is involved to get it fully cured. First, you need to evaporate all the water out of the ink, then you need to hold it at temp long enough for the ink to cure. You gotta have forced air equipment, which is expensive, or you need to put an additive in the ink to help it chemically cure (which can take several days to finish curing, who has time for that?). Curing water-based ink is a complicated process.
With plastisol ink, it’s simple. The entire ink layer just needs to reach the cure temp. No need to use airflow or add anything to the ink to help it cure. Any curing device like a heat gun, flash dryer, heat press, or conveyor dryer will do the trick.
Plus, if you use low cure inks (like FN-INK™, wink), it’s that much easier and quicker to reach full cure. Standard plastisol inks cure around 320°F. Low cure plastisol inks cure at 250°F-280°F. You can really speed up production when you don’t have to get your dryers so hot.
Plastisol ink benefits both the printer and the client. Its show-stopping vibrancy outshines any other ink on the market. Features like how it doesn’t dry out and cures easily make production faster and smoother. It’s a no-brainer. Plastisol ink is the best, period.